Discourse and Pragmatics

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Discourse and Pragmatics

• Genre Analysis

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Genre?

• Romeo and Juliet
• Harry Potter
• Yuan Liang Dibiao Wode Xin
• Yat But Ao Siu (The Weakest Link)
• Facebook Page
• Moshing

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Genres

• Movie Genres

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What Genre are they?
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The development of the concept of Genre

• Literary Studies
• Film Studies
• Stylistics
• Genre Analysis

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Genre
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Genre Analysis

• Genre Analysis is an approach that attempts to
  explain regularities in texts in terms of shared
  communicative purposes within discourse
  communities. It is usually associated with John
  Swales's analysis of the move structure of
  article introductions by North American and
  British academics. But since 1990, it has taken
  on other forms of analysis (rhetorical structure,
  analysis of variation, Systemic Functional
  Linguistics), other discourses (popular genres
  and legal genres as well as academic texts),
  different cultures (the academic writing of
  Finland, Czechoslavakia, or Germany), and
  different modes (in studies of pictures,
  electronic texts, and activities).

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Genre Analysis Genre and Purpose

• John Swales
• Text types are historically and culturally
  situated
• attempts to explain regularities in texts in
  terms of shared communicative purposes within
  discourse communities.
• Genre is SOCIAL ACTION

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Genre
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Discourse Community

• A group of people who join together to pursue
  common goals
• Intercommuinication among members
• Owns a set of genres
• Membership depends of adherence to generic
  conventions
• Membershipliteracy

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What discourse communities do you belong to?
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Moves (academic introductions)

• The four moves of academic introductions
• 1. Establishes the field in which the writer of
  the study is working.
• 2. Summarizes the related research or
  interpretations on one aspect of the field.
• 3. Creates a research space or interpretive space
  (a "niche") for the present study by indicating a
  gap in current knowledge or by raising questions.
• 4. Introduces the study by indicating what the
  investigation being reported will accomplish for
  the field.
• Adapted from John Swales. Genre Analysis
  English in Academic and Research Settings.
  Cambridge University Press, 1990.

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What are the features and moves in these texts?
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Genre

• Communicative event
• Set of clear communicative purposes
• Discourse community
• Structured and conventionalized
• Constraints on allowable contributions
• Intent
• Positioning
• Form
• Function
• Expert members

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Analyzing Stories

• Labovs Narrative Analysis
• Abstract
• Orientation
• Complication
• Evaluation
• Result
• Coda

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Example Recovery Stories

• Introduction
• Complication
• Bottom
• (Failed Reform)
• Transformation
• (Relapse)
• Evaluation
• Coda

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Recovery Stories Features

• Very stable structure
• Set phrases
• themes helplessness, control, hope, fear,
  strength
• Bottom
• Higher power

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Genre

• Tactical aspects of genre
• Discriminative strategies
• Genres are not static, but rather dynamic social
  processes
• Genres define, organize and structure social
  reality
• Genre is a type of social action
• Genres signal Membership

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Mixing Genres

• Relationship with intertextuality
• Fairclough
• Intertextuality
• Interdiscursivity
• Want Ad 1
• Want Ad 2

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Mixing Genres
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Mixing Genres
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Mixing Genres
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Bhatias 7 Steps for Genre Analysis

• Determine the situational context
• Survey literature
• Refining the contextual analysis
• Speaker/Writer and Hearer/Audience
• History of discourse community
• Network of texts
• Subject/Topic
• Select corpus
• Study how the genre is used

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Bhatias 7 Steps for Genre Analysis (Continued)

• Choose focal level for analysis
• Lexico-grammatical features
• Textualization (text-patterning)
• Structural analysis
• cognitive move structure (focus on purpose)
• Get opinions of specialist informants

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Task

• Text Analysis
• Job Application

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Genres and Culture

• Chinese vs. American Business Letters
• Chinese vs. American Television Commercials
• Chinese vs. American Tabloids

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Genres and Power

• Genres link producers, consumers, topics, mediums
  and occassions
• Within a kind of framework
• Which establishes constraints on what is
  acceptable
• And controls the roles and responsibilities of
  producers and consumers
• Reflects social roles (ideology)
• Example

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Question for an Analysis of Genre

• Context (where will the text be encountered and
  how does context affect interpretation?)
• What generic label/s would you give to this text?
  
• What kinds of expectations do you have about this
  genre?
• Does the text meet or not meet those
  expectations?
• What purposes does this genre serve?
• What discourse communities is it associated with?
  
• What ideological assumptions are embedded in the
  text?
• How does this genre construct the reader?
• How does this genre construct the writer?
• How is the reader meant to respond to this text?
• How open to negotiation is your response?
• What relationship does the text have with other
  texts/genres?

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Questions for Genre Analysis

• What ideological assumptions are embedded in the
  text?
• How does this genre construct the reader?
• How does this genre construct the writer?
• How is the reader meant to respond to this text?
• How open to negotiation is your response?

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Expectations

• Repertories of expectations
• Genres are never clearly defined
• New texts may require new genre categories